Bakhram Murtazaliev says he is considering moving up to 160 pounds to challenge Erislandi Lara for the WBA middleweight title because the other two 154-pound champions are busy.
IBF junior middleweight champion Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KO) appears to have been frozen out by top fighters at 154, overlooked, and sidelined.
Very dangerous?
Bakram's third-round knockout of former WBO champion Tim Tszyu on October 19 may have scared away any contenders or champions who were willing to fight him ahead of this demolition mission. He's better off staying at 154 pounds because he won't have any better luck moving up to middleweight.
Unfortunately for Murtazaliev, 41-year-old Lara (31-3-3, 19 KO) is unlikely to agree to fight him either. Lara has not faced a high-level opponent in seven years since his loss to Jarrett Hurd in 2018.
Lara has entertained smaller fighters in the past seven years, including Dani Garcia, Michael Zerafa, Thomas LaManna, Gary O'Sullivan, Greg Venditti and Ramon Alvarez.
Unless someone like Turki Al-Sheikh pays attention to Murtazaliev to help him fight his battles, he will be stuck defending anyone his management can look up to in the FIFA rankings. This is both good and bad.
If a good fighter didn't want to fight Murtazaliev, he could hold the IBF 154-pound title for years without losing it. But on the downside, he won't make the big money he could have if the more famous guys were willing to fight him.
The cost of avoidance
Before beating Tszyu, Murtazaliev had been a professional for ten years, fighting little-known opposition. Despite never losing, his career went nowhere.
He wasn't attached to a major promotion, which hurt. Promoters like Eddie Hearn and Top Rank still had a lot of trouble getting fights for Murtazaliev because he would have been seen as too dangerous for other fighters who didn't want to face him.
When you're as good as Murtazaliev, sometimes it helps to not look too good because then you can get into fights.
If both champions at 154 find opponents, maybe they'll move up to 160 and take Lara's belt?
– Bakhram Murtazaliev (@bakhram95) January 13, 2025
